


Strawberry Lipstick State of Mind

by honey_wheeler



Category: The Queen's Gambit (2020), the Queen's Gambit
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Moments, chess as foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27398698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: Her lipstick has left its mark on him, bright red staining one side of his mouth and the skin next to it, like she’d been trying to kiss him square on the lips but had terrible aim. Beth remembers him collapsing on top of her, his mouth briefly mashed against hers before he slid to the side and panted in her ear. Kissing isn’t something they do all that often. She isn’t sure why. She can never quite decide if she’s glad they don’t or she wishes they did.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Elizabeth "Beth" Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 36
Kudos: 534





	Strawberry Lipstick State of Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Set during episode 6, "Adjournment."

He thinks about chess even more than she does.

Beth hadn’t thought such a thing was possible. Nothing has ever made her _not_ think of chess, at least not until the first time she and Benny… Made love sounds too flowery for what she does with Benny, not least because she doesn’t love him. She’s not even comfortable calling it “fucking” in her head, let alone out loud. Had sex, then. 

(Though really, why _have_ sex? Why not _made_ sex like you made love, or _did_ sex, or some other verb? With Benny, it’s always so compulsive, so irresistible, so intense – it feels more like sex is having her than the other way around.)

Anyway, after she had sex with Benny the first time, she had a few moments where chess was the furthest thing from her mind, up until he brought it up again and it flooded back stronger than ever, even though she didn’t really want it to, like a river breaking through a dam.

He’s back at it again now. Got up to use the bathroom afterwards and never came back, so she had to wrap a sheet around herself to go find him (the only top sheet he has, just like he only has one fitted sheet, and when they’re hanging up to dry after being washed, she and Benny have sex – sex has _them_ \- on a naked mattress). He’s cross-legged in front of a board, the pieces still in the same spots that they were when he lost to her earlier, before – and leading to – The Having of Sex. She distinctly remembers knocking a few of the taller pieces over as she scrambled to her feet and met his reaching hands with her body, but they’ve been set carefully back in place and he studies them now like they’re a crime scene he’s examining for clues. Like he hadn’t just been…you know, literally inside her half an hour ago. After that first time, she’d considered allowing his sudden indifference to hurt her feelings, but now she thinks of it as a sign of his comfort with her. With Harry, she’d resented having to consider his feelings sometimes, like he was a fragile porcelain doll you couldn’t play with enough to actually have fun. Knowing she and Benny don’t love each other makes it easier. She knows she can’t really hurt him. Not like that, at least.

He doesn’t look up when she comes into the room, the sheet dragging behind her on the floor, doesn’t even hear her, maybe. He’s barefoot, bare-chested but for his necklaces, with his usual black dungarees on, not even buttoned up.

(“Dungarees,” he’d laughed the first time she called them that, and before she could ask why it was funny and what they called them in New York, he was cornering her King and then they were having sex right there on the living room floor, without even the small benefit of his lumpy mattress that had no headboard or box spring or quilt, and she was left exhilarated and another five dollars poorer, but who was counting?)

He looks older without his cowboy hat, bigger without his leather jacket. There’s a funny sort of irony in it, since Beth is pretty sure he wears them in hopes of looking older and bigger. They mostly just make him look like a kid playing dress-up, though. Without the coat, she can see that his arms have a surprising amount of muscle and that his shoulders look almost broad. His necklaces dangle over the board as he leans forward, squinting against the cigarette between his lips, which she knows from experience he can smoke down to the filter without ever using his hands. She’s never once seen him without those three necklaces, not even when he showers (which she no longer pretends she can’t see him doing). They trace over her skin sometimes when they’re in bed, his hips between hers, his fists on the mattress on either side of her shoulders, the longest necklace etching ticklish ovals on her sternum as he moves.

“Come look at this,” he says, though he gave no sign of even knowing she was standing there. Obediently, she pads over and sinks to the floor with her feet tucked to one side, the sheet tight around her shoulders and held with a fist in front of her chest. She can see the bottoms of his feet are dirty from walking barefoot on his floors. She always wears socks for exactly that reason.

“Here, you missed this move,” he says, pointing at the board, moving the pieces to show her. She nods vaguely, but his face keeps distracting her. Her lipstick has left its mark on him, bright red staining one side of his mouth and the skin next to it, like she’d been trying to kiss him square on the lips but had terrible aim. Beth remembers him collapsing on top of her, his mouth briefly mashed against hers before he slid to the side and panted in her ear. Kissing isn’t something they do all that often. She isn’t sure why. She can never quite decide if she’s glad they don’t or she wishes they did.

“That’s a good color on you,” she says. He finally looks up at her.

“Eh?”

She reaches out and takes his cigarette from between his lips, the paper sticking slightly as she pulls it away. She shows him the end, smudged with her current favorite shade (Strawberry Delight), before taking a deep drag herself and putting it back between his lips. He takes another drag and then plucks it from his mouth between his index and middle finger to examine it. Still holding the cigarette, he swipes his thumb over his mouth and examines that too, grinning at the red lipstick that’s come off on it.

“Thanks,” he says, transferring his grin to her, looking at her teasingly, “maybe I’ll switch from my usual pink.”

She rolls her eyes. “Lipsticks don’t have dull names like ‘pink.’ You’d wear Dusty Rose or Peony or something like that.”

“Would I?” he asks. His eyes drop briefly to her lips and back up and suddenly Beth’s breathing goes a bit shallow.

“Probably,” she says, sounding as if she’s just run up a flight of stairs. “I couldn’t loan you any, all I have is red.” What a silly thing to say, she thinks to herself. Why is she acting like this is a serious discussion? Maybe it’s because they don’t usually tease like this. They take playful jabs at each other about chess all the time, but not about anything like this. His grin softens into a smile that warms her all the way to her sock-clad toes.

“In that case, I’d rather just wear yours.” His tone tells her he doesn’t intend to borrow it the way she might loan it to a girlfriend. If she’d ever had one. He shakes his hair out of his eyes with an economical flick of his head. She really does like his hair an awful lot. She surrenders to temptation and reaches out to tug on his dangling necklaces, each in turn, one, two, three.

His smile is gone when she looks back up at him, but his eyes are hot and fixed on hers.

“Play me?”

They both know what he’s really asking, and they both know where it will end. Funny how it doesn’t ever seem to matter to him if he wins or loses when it comes to them ending up in bed. Like it’s the battle that gets him wound up, rather than any particular victory. But they have to play first.

Beth takes a long breath and takes up a piece in each hand, one white and one black, and holds out her closed fists to him, letting the sheet slip down around her hips as she does. Now Benny is the one breathing a bit harder and she smiles, not a kindly smile or a pretty smile, but like a cat who knows it’s about to catch the canary.

“Pick,” she says, and Benny does.

_Title from Adore You by Harry Styles_


End file.
